Mother
by AppleCoreCandyBox
Summary: You know it's ok to hate her.' Tenten isn't fooled by faked smiles and forced laughter. Slight TenNaru. *For BlackKyubi and Angelfeatherwirter*


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**We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.  
**-_Johann Wolfgang von Goethe _

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For the life of her, Tenten could never help but have an immense curiosity when it came to the topic of the boy named Naruto. Even when they had been little and all she would ever see was a glimpse of him every now and then, she still found herself pulled towards the flash of blond yellow hair that belonged to him. He kept her interested with reasons she didn't even really know, nor have an answer for when she would ask herself the simple question 'What in the world is it about him?'.

When she was five, she thought it might be because his name was that of a many pointed star like shaped topping found in ramen noodle soups bought at stands. But that wasn't the case.

When she was eight, she though it might be because besides the other girl within his ninja class, Naruto was the only other person she had ever seen with blond hair and blue eyes. But that wasn't the case.

When she was thirteen, she thought it might be because he played so many huge and, admittedly, funny pranks. But that wasn't the case either.

And at the age of nineteen now, she still had no real answer to that question.

She had grown up, like all of those who had befriended him, knowing him as the loud mouth dimwit who seemed to pull miracles out of his ass just in time to save himself and whoever else might be in distress. She had grown up seeing what everyone else saw, and more. Maybe this was the reason she found him so interesting. For as long as she could remember, there were just some things that she could see in him that others could not.

She could tell when he was lying about anything.

She could see the distinct difference between a smile that had genuine happiness behind it and one that felt empty and void of any feeling, muscles practicing an already perfected routine.

She could tell the difference between when he was forcing himself to be hyper and when he genuinely energetic; there was always the slightest slump in his posture and tiny bend to his knees, as if he was holding extra weight on his back.

She would see these things, and would try to nudge him open, try to show him that she could be trusted with some of his darker thoughts. He would turn away from her every time, and she always knew he was lying when he would give her a supposedly happy smile and tell her that he was perfectly fine. He would tell her not to worry.

But she couldn't help but be interested and worried about him, the truths she saw in him could never allow anything but.

The one thing, though, that she noticed most of all was that every other week, on Thursday, he would walk the same path in the village, right past the weapons shop she had helped her parents run since she was ten. Where he went she had never found the time to follow and find out. Sometimes, he would be carrying an object, like flowers, a teddy bear, or, during one summer, she even saw him once carrying a watermelon. But whenever he walked the same path back hours later, there would no longer be anything in his hands. His knees were always bent a little more than usual, his slump was a little more defined, and the grin that was always plastered on his face was so fake to her that she found it impossible that no one could notice it.

But it was the truth, no one except her ever seemed to see the falseness of that grin.

Determination had been bubbling within her for sometime now, the want to see what could possibly make him so sad that his body seemed to literally take weight upon itself, fueling her desire to see. So, she waited for the opportune moment to come.

And come that moment did.

The shop had been exceedingly quiet that day, a total of four costumers coming in, two of which had just been asking for directions. It was already late afternoon when she saw him walking that same path, a small bunch of sunflowers clutched in his hands. Calling to her parents that she would be home later that evening, she hurried after him, keeping a safe distance as any good ninja should. She continued like this for some time, always keeping to the shadows, never making a single noise, years of practice made perfect.

She paused for a moment in her pursuit when he entered the village's asylum. Maybe, she thought to herself, this is something I'm not suppose to know about. People don't visit asylums because they just feel like it, now do they?

And yet another voice urged her to walk to the doors of the building and go through them, something in her gut telling her she wouldn't regret it.

Walking inside, she found Naruto nowhere to be found, even after quickly scanning the empty waiting hall.

"Miss, is there anything I can do to help you?" a middle aged man said from where he sat at the long, wooden reception desk.

Thinking up a lie and thinking it up quick, Tenten answered with fabricated confidence that only shinobi could produce so fluently.

"A young man with blond hair said he would meet me here, have you seen him by chance?" she asked politely.

"You mean Naruto? He just went upstairs."

"That's him. Would you mind telling me exactly where he went?"

"He's up on the third floor in room 164, I believe."

Tenten took her time to climb the three flights of stairs and seemed to drag on with the process of finding the room. Ironically enough, now that she had the opportune moment practically seized, she doubted once more that she really wanted to know why Naruto visited an asylum every other week on Thursday.

As she crept towards the room, she heard his voice drifting forth from it, the words slowly becoming clear enough to understand and comprehend.

"…and then he fell right on his butt. Can you believe it! He's been a ninja for seven years and he still fell on his butt. Oh! And Sakura-chan threw me a birthday party a week ago and everyone came and gave me presents. It was great. I got some new shoes, a scarf, and even a cookbook! I could make something for you and bring it next time, I'm sure you're pretty tired of the food they serve here, right?"

Whoever he was talking to did not speak back after that. Peaking her head around the corner of the doorway only the slightest, Tenten could see Naruto with his back to her, sitting in a chair positioned so he was facing the bed and the person who sat up in it. She was very pretty, despite the dark rings that hung under her blue eyes and the film of grease that covered her wavy light brown hair. Her lips were pale, her skin looked oily, and a white jacket held her arms around her body, trapped in a gesture of self-love.

"So what could I make you? I know you like mochi and tempura, but those are really just snacks. You can't just live off of food like that, now could you?" Naruto continued, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the woman seemed to be giving him an extreme version of the cold shoulder.

There was an awkward pause in which Naruto shifted in his chair and then began again.

"So, what will it be? Mochi or tempura?"

"Neither." The woman said curtly, her voice raspy from not being used.

"I could always try making something different!" Naruto said quickly, a nervous chuckle added to the mix.

"Never do I want your food. Or your flowers or stuffed animals or your visits for, that matter. I don't want you…really, who would? You killed my husband, the least you could do is give him back to me." She said, her tone just as curt as before.

"…I can't bring back the dead. No one can. You know that."

"Worthless. Always so worthless, aren't you?" she said, her tone now as flat as flat could be.

Naruto was again silent.

"Monster, do you know _why_ they always bind me up when you visit? It's because they know I'd rather kill myself than see you. I hate you. I dread the thought of you visiting me, it's made me sick to my stomach sometimes, did you know that?"

Silence again, before,

"I'm sorry I've upset you." Naruto's voice too had gone flat as flat can be.

The woman smiled at him, a smile so full of wrath and animosity it gave her the look of a crazed animal.

"Being a lying piece of shit again, are we? Get out of here before I try to kill myself. I can't stand being in the same air as you." she said, her tone now so overly sweet and tender that there was no possible way for any single ounce of it to be sincere.

Tears prickled Tenten's eyes and clouded her vision.

As the woman laid back down into her bed, Naruto stood up and with a shaky voice said,

"I'll see you next time, OK?"

To this the woman gave no reply.

As soon as Naruto exited the room, Tenten grasped his hand firmly, surprising him immensely. He looked tired, almost listless as he stared at her. His eyes looked aged beyond their years, weighted with the extremely heavy facts of life.

Her grip tightened as she pulled him down the stairs and out of the building, not stopping until they had reached a park where she eventually sat him in a bench, before seating herself next to him. They sat there in silence for sometime, Tenten searching for the right words to be able to ask him what she wanted to know. And before she knew it, the words tumbled out of her mouth, gracelessly.

"W-who was that?"

"My mother." Naruto said, his voice still very flat.

Tenten felt shock swim through her like fire. His...mother?! What type of mother would ever say such things to their child? What real mother had the capacity to do that, to say such hurtful things?

"But how-?" she questioned out loud.

"My dad died when Kyuubi attacked, and she blames me for it. She thinks I'm the fox that took her husband and her kid away from her. She's not as much harmful to others as she is to herself, that's why they put her in there."

"But don't her words-?"

"Yeah, they hurt sometimes."

A pause.

"Is she always like that?"

A deep and heavy sigh.

"No, she sometimes actually thinks I'm my dad for a while and is really nice. But then she usually realizes I'm not him when I don't undo the jacket so she can hug me. I did that once a few years back and she ended almost biting off a part of my ear."

"Why do you visit her then, if all she can say are words that sting?"

A dry and humorless chuckle.

"She's my mother; it's always a child's wish to be loved by their mother, no matter how cruel."

Silence filled the cool air as they sat, watching as the sun slowly started to dip in the sky.

Naruto slumped into the bench, letting his head flop onto Tenten's shoulder.

"You know it's OK to hate her."

A shaky sigh filled the air as a deep anxiety was finally relieved and released, a dam breaking in its wake as salty water bubbled from a set of blue eyes, the brown pair soon to follow.

And they sat there for what felt like ages, crying for the sake of crying, neither paying attention to the falling of the sun.

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**And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened.**

--"_**LIFE AFTER GOD**__",_ DOUGLAS COUPLAND

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Yes, I have risen from the dead for the moment. Why? Because this idea kept biting me. It hurt, badly. But yes, few things to say before I go back to being non-existent here. Please, to all who are reading this, do please read 'Cancer' on Angelfeatherwriter's profile, it would make me supremely happy, we work hard on it. And as a note to anyone who gives a crap, you can find any and all of my original fiction and poetry at **fictionpress(dot)com**, under the penname **NNCS,** given though that lots of the stuff there is very old, I still find it refreshing to go back to those poems and remember how crappy I felt and remind myself I nice it is to not feel so damn crappy anymore. Much love to all!


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